Bookshelves - finished enough for now

This was the first big project that my 15-year old son and I “completed”. Nothing is ever really completed since we need to add trim, but it’s been in use for a couple of years now and we never really finish anything we start (can anyone else relate to that?). We have an old house, built in 1890 which had a nice foyer that nobody ever comes in through since people park in the alley behind the house and come in through the kitchen.

We had 10’ high ceilings and wanted to fill the foyer with bookcases. My library still doesn’t quite fit but we are pretty much out of bookshelf space. Very basic set of tools used – table saw and jigsaw were all we had at the time. Used pine since I couldn’t afford oak and the resale values in my neighborhood wouldn’t support putting too much money into the house. Best thing is that it is very strong. I worry more about the structure of the house supporting all that weight than I do about the bookshelves holding up.

To finish we want to add crown and some sort of trim on the vertical supports. We probably need to build a ladder to get to the upper shelves since nobody is 8 ft tall in my family. Now that we have a router and a nice miter saw we coulf probably do the next steps but we’ve moved onto other projects and it may never get done.

It’s on my project list, but maintenance seems to be a priority in old houses. People use to say “you never finish anything.” I’d reply “but I do and you don’t see it cause I start more projects than most people.” :)